Time

time flows by

like a river in spate

billowing at the edges,

flooding the streams of thought

drowning the banks of reason 

the seams of my mind 

come undone. 

try to hold with all my might

the stitches, wayward,
flying out of my grasp.

like tiny droplets,
pearls of time
scratched, yet glinting,
in my palm.

distant as a chimera

vapours arise

bites of a wasp
tiny at first
then the skin engorged
flush with mangled memories.

liquid flows out
leaks into the void

shredded fabric of my being
drenched and fraying 

body wrinkled  

mind bent
scratched and broken and bent

Wrinkles and Grey

The wrinkles on my face,
the lines on my forehead,
the crow's feet under my eyes
all expanding further,
like tentacles gnawing away at my life.  

My fast greying hair, 

from which conversations sprouted-

I feigned modesty at compliments-
that too, just unprettied itself out.

Now my discoloured hair, limp,
like a beggar woman's curses 
shouted from across the street.

The skin on my hands has begun to shrivel 
slathering gallons of lotions it defies.

It cannot be held at abeyance any longer,

the quick-paced, relentless beating of time

Head reeling from the horror,
I recoil
I retreat from the mirror -

that image isn't mine.

Beyond my control, 

slave of time

my skin and my body-

but not my mind.

When I close my eyes 
from behind the weary brow still shines 

the toothy smile of the little girl. 

Bright, self-conscious, awkward 

and hope lingers, unfounded,

in the dark bright pools of her eyes.

You live on,  
little girl, 
in hopes and in smiles-
I've weathered many a storm
I'm still alive. 

Underneath

to dismantle my body 

inch by inch

peel off my skin

unline each muscle 

break every bone.

to carve you into my flesh
lay down a lining of you.
 
to dissolve you into my blood
imbibe each layer of my being.

with a scalpel  

slice each nerve
splice into each a vestige of you
till all of me is rife
with a thronging
of you

and leave it there. 

this heap of flesh 

stay in the earth
smashed into a pulp 

reduced to a red and purple ooze 

and bones of me 

flakes turn into dust 

and shimmer in the haze

lay ground beneath your feet.

violence

Break my bones.
Pick them off my body 
Like chicken wings. 
Till I stop breathing,
and cease to exist.

Till my lungs collapse 
and skin pulls away.
I turn into a heap 
Of skin n bones.
Immobile, 
affixed to the centre
of my universe-
You

Tide

Thoughts of you crowd my mind
like a bunch of ants crawling
under my skin.

Swat away one,
another crawls by;
a never ending stream
which I cannot stem
only may be hold at bay for a while
till I can, by myself,
walk into the arms of the tide.

Drunk

Of you, when I have drunk with my eyes,
See, how they brim over

Of you I have drunk with my eyes,
no, not my fill, 
just enough of you,
to hold me till 
next time.

A year

two months

three hours

gaps in my existence 

when you leak from my palms and 

my skin is leached of you
and the skin begins to peel 
and the brain cells go on strike,
days feel like holes drilled in my back
waiting for you still

Postscript

Had I known better,

would I have  not held you closer -

let you breathe your own breaths 

not stolen with my tongue 

strips of yours, wet.

Had you not held me so close 

throbbing organs bursting forth, 

my rashes on your skin.

And before my day begins, 

I get to lie close to you-in my head
and bring you into my dreams

never having needed to flee, before,

from myself so secretively.

Would it have been easier, 

when I knew I had to, to let go ?

Breakable

Fragile beings, we, each one.
In the constant struggle of everyday living,
we pack it away, this breakable self bubble wrapped,
safely - or so we think-
in the corner shelf,
behind the large jar of self esteem we've been hoarding in.

But it's glass after all.
A little crack,
and it all spills out,
in a gory mosaic.

Listen

It seems the most natural thing
like the wetness of water
and warmth of a baby's touch,
when I tell you how I've been.

Like a lifetime hadn't passed me by
since I last caught a glance
of you.
When words became garbled
nonsense
and the earth stopped breathing

When I have my chance
and you listen to me,
its like my heart had just learned to beat
and I'd become aware of me

Because your eyes had spoken
the tongue, now frozen
in the deepest depths
buried deep under the sea.

As the tides gather and beat their heads
pitiless, along the shore
and return like they have for aeons
empty, shrivelled to the core,

I try to speak
But you listen no more.

My pain is a democracy

My pain, so real,

in every vein of mine,

like the life blood, 

passed to me from my mother; 

is it blood, or is it brine ?

For the water of my eyes,

salty, tangy to the tongue.

These are but ruby red drops 

turned into brine.

This churning in the pitless cavern 

into which aches coil up,

then spring on me unbidden-

they don't choose the right time.

My pain is a democracy 

anarchy ruins the state of my mind.

All happiness, fleeting,

will soon take flight.

In pain, this body thrives

and makes to float away with me,

when, as a ton of iron, it drags me down 

to the bed of the sea.

Finally, I'm alive.

The Crucial Fiction

You were given to me,
a plaything.
Joy untold, wafted in,
with you.
Pine scented limbs of yours,
I breathed in,
life.

Always knowing
this is not real,
watching,
biding my time.

But the gods, they play me,
the games change,
rules upturned,
new laws deployed to thwart me.
I must now forfeit
every small victory
of waning smiles.

This journey will not end
on the turning of the tide
nor will I even win
a smallest chance; a strike.

They stacked the odds
and set me up
to be crucified.
And I'm told :
you must do it
with a smile.

A Nonsensical Rhyme

A woman asking for her right

not that which belongs to anyone else,

'But is rightfully mine'

She isn't to be trusted, 

and you know why?

She demands to be heard,

given what's rightfully hers?

Such audacity, 

what a perverse time,

why must we listen to her whine:

The odd case of disgruntled wife

Roots

My heart sings,
my senses go numb
when you say my name:
Just a flick of your tongue,
I could fly on the wings of my desire
If only I hadn't grown roots in the sand

Soothsayer mine, my friend

You were never  mine,
you didn't  belong to me.

Yet somehow it grew in me,

this sweet, intimate fantasy-

you will be around, holder of my hand,

In every crisis, in my every need- 

soothsayer mine, my friend.

Like a voracious baby 

viciously attacks the womb,

runs it down, let's it drain,

unembarrassed, in it's single minded intake.

I've picked your brain as you held my hand,

you amazing creature of delight,

and left for you only aches, some pain.

I go back to the moment 

in which your trust, I earned.

Hanging on to your every word,

was all I had, in me, to commend :

slung myself around your neck, like a sniffly brat.

 Persistence finally  paid off 

I stepped on clouds and walked on mists :

my hand, in yours, you'd taken.

Time has passed us by

and our days are all but done.

As I stand on the edge of the cliff of time

to be hurled Into the abyss,

I count  the innumerable smiles

and nurture in my soul 

the warmth from you, to which I'd clung.

I devour every memory, 

and it helps me stow away for eternity 

the way we were, the way we were never meant to be.

The countless shores we've left behind, 

and finally the tides have turned.

Never again will we be, as we were then,

my soothsayer, the laughter of my days,

My mate, my friend.

Needles and Pins

Needles and pins aren't quite my thing-
No, I don't need to flaunt your name on my skin.

No loud declarations of the immortality of love,
no telling when this spectacle ends in a drift.

Yes, you're etched on my tongue,
each nerve, every sinew-
throbs to your call,
my senses, every night, to your name they sing-

melodies of rapture,
a walk through the dark, doomed vales of desire,
drenched in the showers of pine scented mists.

Bodies speak unspeakable words
they drown, they float, they surge,
A language I cannot utter
a vocabulary I've never heard.

As the shore runs into the arms of the sea
and my skin hears tales of fantasy.
You, the god who answers my prayers-
I shall go to you on bended knee.

Till you evoke in me, desire
and my lust, in your heart, does spring
We can keep up this game -
call it love, or whatever you will.

The Drowning

I repeat the words, 

and they come back to hound. 

They lose all sense-

meaningless words, 

unstrung from their sentences,

hang around in mid air 

like a conjuror's trick.

Hang for a while, before they sink- 

sink into the depths of my senses.

Float up again in my dreams,

when the world sleeps in peace

they wake up

wander around, unmoored,

shackles flung away-

they come unwound.

Meaningless letters,

soundless words

wordless  sounds :

they all gather around

weights compound 

pile up one on another

ricochet, rebound.

And in a final tumult 

they take me down.

Together  forever, my words and I, 

we all drown.

Rewind

All the layers of fenced out moments 

collapsed and died-
fell away like scales of lime, soaked overnight.

In a heartbeat -
was it yours, or was it mine? -
we make the trip.
That a retreat would be made,

was never considered a possibility.

I lapse back into old habits -
synchronize our schedules.
Your nap times
for some peace and quiet;

trying to reconstruct the present

from scattered pieces of me.

Keeping close watch as you hobble around
carrying your shruken self 

as if a human touch would corrode,

and words may cause the mind to implode
Leave you in a weepy, messy mode.

You hold your chafed self aloof
only I have permission to see your wounds.

As you go over and over the same events
your mind stuck in one single groove
I despair, yet I hope
this cannot be permanent,
this new self, it's not you.

We will pull up those fences,
redraw the boundaries,
mark out the territory,
and send back into oblivion
this garbled version of time.

Midnight lady

I watch her sit on a trolley,
at midnight,
limbs flung carelessly about.
She casts a non chalant glance at the approaching man,
and shrugs with her eyes.

She stretches her garish red painted lips-
the whites sparkle under the streetlight;
the smile doesn't reach her eyes.

The crowd of words out of her mouth
as if in a rush to get out 
the faux familiarity of a bargain hunter,
this deal is no idle banter.

She looks down her platform and sizes him up,
and speaks volumes with her eyes.

No gentile preenings of the housewife,
to her, the crutches of femininity have been denied
and as they've fallen by the wayside
she lives, she breathes, she thrives.

She needn't suppress a sneeze
and laughs as loudly as she pleases-
depending on none but her own
body, her limbs, her mind
she lives as she will die:
on the streets, in the public eye.

He, sitting besides me, in the car seat,
casts her way a withering glance
rolls up the glass pane
And gives me, with his eyes, a reprimand.

My Rayless Soul

The moonlight curdles onto my eyelid,
shreds it with each sliver.
With a smile, I take each blow-
black eyes, to me, are known.

Flecks of darkness enter my soul,
and it's a beauty to behold
when all senses are blotted out
As if written over in the blackest coal

My dark lord shall enter,
only in the depths of disguise.
With all my might I try to fight
blot out all light from my mind.

It has torn me asunder,
keeping sanity at bay.
But my rayless soul is now ready
to drown out all disarray:
I surrender at your feet,
my lord, my master, my all, my prey.

Ants

Your memories, like monsoons unleashed,
the torrent that won't cease.
Once the surface is scratched
like a monster, hear it screech-
pounding through my veins.

Awakened, memory won't go back to sleep.
It rants and raves and I hear it speak-
as if a creature from the deep.

Thoughts of you crowd my mind
like a bunch of ants crawling
under my skin.
Swat away one,
another crawls by.
A never ending stream which I cannot stem
Only maybe hold at bay for a while
till I can, by myself, walk into the arms of the tide.